


An Instrument of Thy Peace

by Celesma



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character of Faith, Female Castiel, Gen, Mental Illness, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 06:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4049917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celesma/pseuds/Celesma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I remember I used to want to help people. I wanted to make the world a better place."</p>
<p>Castiel hears Jimmy's prayer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Instrument of Thy Peace

_Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;_  
_Where there is hatred, let me sow love;_  
_Where there is injury, pardon;_  
_Where there is error, the truth;_  
_Where there is doubt, the faith;_  
_Where there is despair, hope;_  
_Where there is darkness, light;_  
_And where there is sadness, joy._

—The Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

* * *

In Pontiac, Illinois, the first hints of frost were creeping upon the rows of suburban houses that populated the quiet streets, its arrival in perfect accord with the dictates of the Gregorian calendar and the current tilt of the earth on its axis; the frost graduated to a tentative fall of flakes, each design as unique and irreplaceable as it was unappreciated by the ones it came to bless; the snow fell heavy as the hours ran into days into weeks into months; and Castiel waited.

She was waiting for _kairos_ , the opportune moment to enact the plan that had been codified into prophecy before the first star had been sung into existence, before she herself had even begun to be. Angels were less equipped to understand linear time, or _chronos_ , than their charges were; once landed on earth, it was a foreign language that they struggled to pick up. To a human it would have seemed that she had been waiting there for half a year, but Castiel was only peripherally aware of the passage of time.

The plan was this: she would ask Claire Novak to be her vessel, and Claire Novak would say yes.

Upstairs, in the only single bedroom of the two-story home that served as the Novak residence, Claire had gone to bed, an open book still perched on her chest as it rose and fell with soft breaths. She had been tasked at school earlier in the day with reading a certain amount of pages from a certain textbook that Castiel knew to be more fiction than fact (as most human records of history were), but Claire's tutoring session had run overlong and she didn't have the energy to keep her eyes open as she read by the light of the nightstand lamp. Castiel felt inclined to inform Claire of the school system's deceit herself—and, moreover, that it was pointless to study history anyway when one had much more important callings in life—but the order had not yet been handed down.

Then, finally, as the moon shone full and high in the sky, she was given the revelation she needed. _Kairos_ had come; the time was now.

Castiel flowed into action, her immaterial and loosely atomized form instinctively drawn towards the interstitial spaces in Claire's own atoms, vibrating with an exquisite music that only she could hear. They were calling to be filled by her, as much as she herself longed to fill them. Revelation had not specified how long it would take to receive her vessel's consent, but Castiel was not concerned. The only thing that mattered was that she said yes, and that was as much a guarantee as the stars wheeling in their preordained courses in the sky, or the slow heat death of the universe.

Castiel hovered at the window. She had been watching Claire closely in the preceding weeks, sifting through her routines as though they were grains of sand to find the things that were important to her (faith, friends, family) and crafting a strategy of communication that would somehow appeal to one or more of these things. _(God has judged you worthy, Claire Novak; say yes to me and they will all be saved, Claire Novak.)_ Her brethren were often impatient and gained their vessels' consent in ways that sapped the Grace right out of her to hear—although she would never admit as much, not even under threat of torture—and Castiel preferred her vessels to be happy with the choice they had made.

She passed through the window, the spaces between the atoms that comprised it increasing to make way for her own. She was very close now: close enough to touch the golden hair that spilled over her vessel's pillow, to fully revel in the song that sprang forth from every inch of her material form. Tendrils of Grace reached out to curl around the soul that was nestled within, just as comfortably as an infant in its mother's womb.

In the moment before she could make contact, she stopped. A small voice (not Claire's) rang out in the still night.

"God, are You there? It's, um, it's me. It's Jimmy."

Castiel didn't move. The hesitation cost her dearly; once she had allowed the new human's voice to fully sink into her awareness, his emotions—sorrow, helplessness, shame—caught up to her as clearly as stragglers in a footrace. Castiel was discouraged from listening to prayers that were not directly addressed to her, but the man's plea was impossible to ignore.

She left the room and swept soundlessly towards the source of the prayer. Jimmy Novak, Claire's father, stood in the backyard, his shoes crunching in the snow as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He was a man of strong faith who prayed often and gave much, which had earned the angel's quiet respect as she watched the family's daily goings-on.

"I'm sorry to bother You with my problem," Jimmy was saying. The last word was spoken with a bitterness so unbecoming of his normally gentle nature that the angel was taken aback. He was donned in the clothes he wore for his work, a large tan overcoat draped over his shoulders to shield from the bite of the wind, swallowing most of his form. "I know You've got more important things You could be doing, but, well... I could really use some help."

Castiel sat in absolute stillness on the roof and listened.

"So I guess it's official now... Amelia and I are fighting again. Third time this month, actually." He gave a sigh of utter resignation. "Things, uh, things aren't looking rocky yet, but I'll probably be sleeping on the couch and... oh geez, _yet._ Did I really just _say_  that?"

He clapped the heel of his hand to his forehead, as if that might shake loose the thoughts that reigned in a tyranny of chaos inside his skull. Castiel had long known of the man's mental aberration, but as it was not relevant to her mission (except to the degree that it would help her get a  _yes_ out of her vessel— _I can heal your father, Claire Novak_ was another blade she kept sharpened in her collection) she had not given it much thought at all.

"Well, anyway... I really screwed up this time. I was putting the leftovers away and I thought I heard her talking to me—I mean, it _sounded_ like her, at least—and everything seemed fine, but then she started talking about how _the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain_ , and... and I don't even know what I was thinking. I guess that's the problem. I _don't_ think." He chuckled darkly. "I just said back, easy as you please,  _oh no Ames, it rains on the plane when you have a sprain_ , and before I knew it there I was pacing around the kitchen like a lunatic, making salad—"

Jimmy paused, as if to catch his breath. Castiel noticed that many humans did this when they prayed; although the God they worshiped was perfect in knowledge, they still felt the need to explicitly spell out the circumstances for which they required assistance. Castiel was familiar enough with that, even if she didn't understand it. 

_Making salad,_ however, was a little more difficult to parse. Judging from the context, Castiel felt that it did not refer to preparing food but to something else, and if she had been occupying a human at that moment she would have frowned. Even for them, the slang sounded particularly opaque.

The thought of such reminded her that this was irrelevant. She ought to leave the disordered man to his disordered thoughts. To return to Claire, and her mission. And yet Jimmy's anguish proved a powerful anchoring force. Instead of leaving, she dropped down from the roof and crept closer, taking care to stay hidden.

A brief touch of her Grace upon his mind informed her that she had been correct. _Making salad_ was Jimmy's shorthand for _making word salad_ : itself a symptom of a split mind, a tendency for the sufferer to babble nonsense words and phrases. In the same instant she learned that Jimmy had cycled through a variety of antipsychotic medications for schizophrenia since college—he had been training to become a humanitarian aid worker when he first began hearing voices—and while his wife continued to support and love him without condition, he had never really come to terms with the fact that he would never be able to fulfill those dreams, nor support the family he had created along the way.

"And then Amelia showed up, the _real_ Amelia, and of course I couldn't tell them apart. And she'd had a bad day at the hospital, the director was riding her ass again, so she—uh, she didn't take it well." His voice broke on what might have been another laugh, or a sob. "I'm just lucky Claire was already in bed. She doesn't know about the fights."

He sighed, deeply, the breath he was holding released in a stream of pale fog, and fisted his hair.

"I'm so worthless. Aren't I? I'm not good for anything at all." He tugged his hair tighter. "I can't even control my own mind. Can't even pretend for one whole week. I just—I know, I _know_ , I'm not supposed to say it—sometimes I just wish I'd never been born."

Castiel was dumbfounded. For a moment her form shuddered briefly into existence, but Jimmy didn't notice. He drew the coat tighter around himself.

"And it's _pathetic_ , how much it keeps happening. I don't even notice until it's too late. Most days, I think I'm doing good—I think I'm doing okay, and then Ames is mad and Claire's upset and I realize I—I—fucked up again." Jimmy rarely cursed, and never with such harshness, and so the word held more power as he gave up and let it fly from his mouth. "I did something wrong, I hurt them. I hurt them both so much. I don't blame Ames for getting mad, she's working so hard to keep everything together, it's _me_ that needs to be the strong one, I mean, fuck, I'm the man of the house, right? I need to—"

But what it was that he needed to do he himself didn't even seem to know. Jimmy sank into a sitting position on the cold, damp ground, his knees drawn tightly to his chin, his voice raw.

"Please, Lord, isn't there something I can do? I'm not asking You to cure me. You've blessed me so much already, I can't be that presumptuous. Only give me something that I can _do_. I remember I used to want to help people. I wanted to make the world a better place. To be—an instrument of Thy peace. And I still want that, I _do_ , if I just had the chance somehow... and maybe then, I'd finally be the man my girls need me to be."

He ducked his head, but not before Castiel saw the shine of tears on his face. They every bit resembled the snowflakes that fell upon his shoulders and gleamed in his hair.

The angel wanted to tell him that there was no need to prove himself to his family. That Amelia was already planning to apologize to him in the morning, and that Claire's love for him had not dimmed in the slightest. That he had already proven his worth over and over again, by getting up each day and making a valiant effort to take care of his wife and child while containing the demons that scourged his mind. But to do so would mean compromising her mission.

_And yet I cannot do nothing,_ she thought.

"Father, if You're there, if You're listening..."

_Father_. Of course. They had the same Father. For one stunned moment the angel fully grasped the epiphany that angels were no higher or lower than men but simply their siblings. And it was the job of the older brothers and sisters to take care of the ones that came later, no matter the cost.

And she knew, then. There _was_ something she could do.

Until now, she had only taken female vessels. And Claire was the one that had been prepared for her: as far back as when Castiel had first gone to Hagar, mother of Ishmael, and comforted her in her time of destitution, telling her she would be the mother of countless descendants. And so she had been, but now there were only two of that family that were suitable—

Two. Claire, and her father, Jimmy.

_I see now, Father_ , she said to the stars, and they seemed to chime in answering song. She understood now, why He had led her to hear the man's prayer. For tonight, it would be answered.

The prospect nearly excited her.

_Tonight_ , she whispered, not quite allowing her voice to be perceptible, manifesting arms of ephemeral intent and wrapping them around the man's withdrawn, shivering form. Jimmy was not aware of her presence at all, but she felt the lines in his face relax, felt the flow of tears cease. His cells had their own song, throbbing with pain and discord, but certainly beautiful. Redeemable. _Go inside, and trouble yourself no more. For I will make you an instrument of peace unto the entire world._

Jimmy clasped his hands, nodded his thanks to his God, and rose silently. The tears on his face where she had touched him had dried. Obediently, he began walking back towards his house. Castiel could still feel Claire's presence in the upper bedroom, a microcosm of colliding atoms, the empty spaces left in their wake crying out to be filled: to be fulfilled. A small part of her still cried out in return, but it was eclipsed by the strength of the feelings that overwhelmed her as Jimmy turned around and gazed right at her, smiling as if he could see her.

If she had a face, she thought, she might have smiled back.

She ascended to Heaven, displacing snowflakes that twisted in new and random designs on the chilled air, the sense of wonder that humans reserved for her kind working through her like an electrical discharge. Nothing had changed, she convinced herself. Not really. Jimmy, faithful servant that he was, would certainly say yes. The plan would still be carried out; the Righteous Man would still be saved. All would be accomplished just as it was meant to.

And yet she herself felt changed. She wasn't sure she liked the feeling. If it wouldn't yet prove dangerous in some way.

She pushed on through the veil still, wings stretched to their full and glorious length, and prayed only that her superiors might understand; and that she might, in the end, be the one to give Jimmy Novak his peace.

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of have this headcanon that Claire was supposed to be Castiel's vessel originally, but Cas being Cas decided to give Jimmy a chance (canon tells us that "he actually prayed for this," so how might that have gone?). It would explain why Cas was so set on just letting Jimmy die in The Rapture when he could have easily healed him and taken him over again -- he was in the "correct" vessel this time and the brainwashing in Heaven had restored him to factory settings, so to speak. I also like the idea that Castiel's last-minute change of heart in switching over to Jimmy (thanks to the "crack in his chassis") was the beginning of a chain reaction that helped derail the Apocalypse -- because I'm pretty sure Dean would have absolutely refused to deal with an angel who was possessing a little girl, never would have established a relationship with Castiel as a result, and ultimately would have been SOL when Lucifer came a-callin'. Butterfly effect, and all that.
> 
> Also, Castiel isn't male _or_ female in this story. He just happens to identify as more feminine since all his vessels tend to be women. Misha recently made some comments at Asylum 14 to the effect that Castiel really doesn't have a gender at all (and Erica Carroll, Hannah's actress, said the same thing about angels in general) so I decided to play around with that a bit.


End file.
